Notes:
- When he was 8 years old he bought his first comic book, 'Tintin' which was his main inspiration to get into art
- His dad, also an artist, encouraged him to draw from life instead of comics, which he found hard at first but eventually made progress
- Life drawing classes were the most valuable
- In Hamburg (aged 24-25) he developed a self-driven project where he drew every day for six months and made a book from it. He took this to a book fair in Frankfurt and didn't get any responses sadly
- Kulger took on graphic design jobs following this as he couldn't get any illustrative work
- He applied and was accepted for a scholarship in NY!
- His tutors told him that to be successful he needed to add colour to his work
- As well as adding colour, he also began to add text to drawings, and this is where his practice really took off.
- He started working for the guardian who commissioned editorial jobs for him within the travel column of the paper
- These involved making sketches of different sceneries, objects and people from different cultures which was really successful
- Went on to draw prison inmates, travelled to Iran and is currently working on projects to do with Syrian Refugees, which are beautiful!
Reflection
I haven't really looked into reportage illustration much myself, but I was really warmed by the emotional expressions through images and words that Kulger portrayed through interviewing people from different cultures, especially the people suffering from the civil war in Syria. I get the impression that experiencing culture first hand and expressing the sounds, smells, images, feelings within a sketchbook is something that is truly special and possesses a really heartfelt quality and authenticity.
I have never considered putting travel and illustration together, but this has really inspired me to take my sketchbook to new places and record my experiences visually to gain a more qualitative understanding of the world around me.
http://www.olivierkugler.com
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